MIA04LA084 · Piper PA-28R-200
Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: loss of control in flight during initial climb
From Everglades Airpark (X01) to Peter O Knight Airport (TPF)
Event
- NTSB case
- MIA04LA084
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28R-200
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N33840
- Operator
- William R. Caudle · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Everglades Airpark (X01), Everglades City, FLTo Peter O Knight Airport (TPF), Tampa, FL
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Initial climb
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control in flight
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall; Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed(vs), not maintained
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot stated that he performed a run-up of the engine prior to departing the airport and found no problems. He said he then back-taxied to runway 15 for departure and during the take-off roll, the engine seemed to be fine. He further stated that at 65-68 knots he rotated but the aircraft did not leave the ground so he let the aircraft accelerate to 75 knots. The pilot says he then pulled back on the yoke, and the aircraft lifted off the runway and torqued to the left which he attempted to counteract by using the right rudder. He said that at this point the engine seemed "diminished" but that it was not sputtering. He said he then lowered the nose and the aircraft began descending at which time he lowered the landing gear. He says he saw a small island of trees and set the aircraft down in the trees. The passenger seated in the right front seat stated that before takeoff the pilot performed an engine check and it was running fine. During the takeoff roll the pilot pulled the aircraft up at about 65 miles per hour. He thought they were lifting off early for they still had over half of the runway left. The pilot pulled the nose up too steep and at about 300 feet the airplane began to stall and the left wing dropped. The pilot tried to gain speed by dropping the nose and leveling off. They did not have enough altitude and the airplane kept dropping and went into the trees. As far as he could tell there was nothing wrong with the airplane. Postcrash examination and testing of the airplane structure and flight control systems, airplane and engine fuel system, engine, propeller, fuel control, propeller governor, and the stall warning system switch showed no evidence of precrash failure or malfunction.
Probable cause
The failure of the pilot to maintain airspeed during climb after takeoff resulting in an inadvertent stall, uncontrolled descent, and impact in a wooded area.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record MIA04LA084
- Event ID
- 20040520X00620
- Case number
- MIA04LA084
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: d8e81a8774b73ee83c3eb0f9ed3e01afa6a870670a4a2225c57734901908a323; retrieved 2026-09-21T09:17:22.412Z.